Municipality of Monreale, includes the PAX library, which story is closely connected to that of the Benedictine abbey complex founded by Pope St. Gregory the Great in the sixth century. The abbey was destroyed by the Arabs in 837 and rebuilt in 1347 by the Benedictine Angelo Sinisio who dedicated it to St. Martin of Tours.
According to the rule of St. Benedict, monks have to dedicate a few hours every day to reading, hence the necessity of Benedictine libraries. This is why many monks became scribes and dedicated hours to copying codes or decorating liturgical texts. Sinisio, indeed, set up a small library, as evidenced by a catalog dating back to 1348 discovered by Don Salvatore Di Blasi and published in 1770.
Between 1620 and 1625 the volumes were transferred, upon request of the Abbot D. Stefano D’Amico, to a single room identified as the “Fire Chamber” in order to prevent their dispersion.
Following the anticlerical laws of 1866 (suppression of religious corporations) that had initially spared this specific Abbey, in 1869 all works of art, the library and the valuable wooden shelving were removed and relocated into the National Library of Palermo. Only recently, the remaining shelves were returned to the monastery.
When the Library was dismembered and dispersed, the collection was destined not only to the National Library of Palermo, but also to that of Casa Professa (Palermo Municipal Library) and to the municipal libraries of Monreale and Termini Imerese.
The scattered early book collection used to include different subjects: from theological disciplines (dogmatics, asceticism and morality) to physics, astronomy, mathematics, chemistry, including biographies of illustrious men. Some of these volumes are bound with the characteristic Martinian parchment binding with square and rhomboid impressed decoration and with gold and black punching of phytomorphic motifs.
Today the library has more than 35,000 volumes, most of which have been recently acquired.
Website: http://www.abbaziadisanmartino.it/abbazia/biblioteca/